The Setup/ Backstory of Dr. Shim and His Research Team

Along with the House of Wolves Destiny DLC came new grimoire cards; one of which was Ghost Fragment: Vex 4. While many players complain that Destiny has no story due to its lack of cinematic cutscenes and limited interaction with NPCs, those who can bear the tortures of the ancient art of reading lengthy literature, there is actually a wealth of story hidden within the grimoire cards.

At the same time, we understand that not everyone feels like engaging in this extra chore of sorting through bits and scraps of grimoire information searching for the tidbits that are actually interesting and meaningful additions to the game’s storyline.

Luckily, for your convenience, we’ve not only found an interesting story, but also summarized it for you in a coherent manner, as well. The story of which I am speaking of is that of Dr. Shim and his research team. You may remember our March post on the subject: Destiny’s Hidden Grimoire Story: Dr. Shim’s Vex-ception.

The story involves some pretty complex and mind bending space-time/ interdimensional travel elements so you may want to read through the previous post but if not, we’ll sum that up quickly, too.

Basically, Dr. Shim and his team are Ishtar Collective research scientists who have come to the realization that they may not actually be living in reality, but instead are probably artificial intelligence algorithms functioning in a vex-simulated holographic virtual reality. Naturally, they realize that the only way to test their hypothesis is to use the advanced artificial intelligence of a Warmind to outthink the vex simulation and rescue Dr. Shim and his team from the holographic virtual reality that they are theoretically trapped within.

This brings us to Ghost Fragment: Vex 4.

The card welcomes us into a scene in which Dr. Shim and his team are “operating remote bodies by neural link [while]the team’s thoughts are relayed through the warmind who saved them, sandboxed and scrubbed for hazards [while their]real bodies are safe in the Academy, protected by distance and neural firewall.”

In other words, Dr. Shim and his team used a warmind to upload their consciousnesses into robotic drone bodies. They do this in order to cross the “safety cordon and walk the ancient stone under the Citadel, the Vex construct that stabs up out of the world to injure space and time.” Except there isn’t just one of each of them inside the bodies. Instead, there are “two hundred and twenty-seven copies of themselves, untortured and undamaged. Those copies voted, all unanimously, to be dispatched into the Vex information network as explorers.”